Should you eat your fitbit calories earned?

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TxRottie81
TxRottie81 Posts: 45 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I recently linked my fitbit charge HR to my MFP. I noticed it logs calories earned by steps as I go throughput the day.. Should I consume all/part of these calories back or will it hinder my progress?

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  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
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    I eat back most, sometimes all of the calories fitbit gives me, so far so good.

    I have the basic zip as the only exercise I do is walking. I'm a tad suspicious of those HRM's..

    You just have to bite the bullet and trust what it tells you for 3-4 weeks. Then you can tweak things from there if you need to.
    Also, make sure you have negative adjustments enabled
  • TxRottie81
    TxRottie81 Posts: 45 Member
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    Thanks for your reply. Im going to stick with it and if I notice that im not losing when I should ill cut back.

    So far I really enjoy my fit bit.. I had the zip before but it stopped working. I used it's demise as an excuse to get a new chargeHR.. Im pleased so far with it. I cant always assess my phone at work so the wrist watch style works great.
  • macgurlnet
    macgurlnet Posts: 1,946 Member
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    Eat back all of them (or as many as you are hungry for, depending on the day...) and see how your weight loss goes.

    Make sure you have enabled negative calorie adjustments and that you log food here, and exercise either here or in Fitbit but never both. You do not need to log step-based exercise but things like biking and swimming should be logged.

    Do that for 4 weeks and evaluate your weight loss at that point. Hopefully you will find that your Fitbit has been accurate :)

    ~Lyssa
  • TxRottie81
    TxRottie81 Posts: 45 Member
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    Oh what are negative adjustments.?
  • strong_curves
    strong_curves Posts: 2,229 Member
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    I have the fitbit flex and I usually eat most of my fitbit calories, about 75%.
  • macgurlnet
    macgurlnet Posts: 1,946 Member
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    fudge8181 wrote: »
    Oh what are negative adjustments.?

    Go into Settings>Diary Settings and scroll down a bit. You should have a section called "Calorie Adjustments" with a checkbox called "Negative Calorie Adjustments."

    Enabling them means you may see a negative number at the beginning of the day since you haven't moved much yet. As the day progresses, the negative number will switch to positive as you move more. For me, I need to get in about 2k steps before I start earning additional calories.

    Enabling negative adjustments helps give you a more accurate number for calories burned over the course of a day.

    ~Lyssa
  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,565 Member
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    fudge8181 wrote: »
    Oh what are negative adjustments.?

    Where it'll take away calories if you don't move enough to your MFP activity level (up to the 1200 calorie floor), that way you aren't overeating on a less active day.

    And yes, I eat back most of my calories.
  • PneumaVision
    PneumaVision Posts: 44 Member
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    I pretty much don't. I enabled negative calories because otherwise it seemed to be giving me absurd amounts of calories as my goal. If I'm really hungry on a very active day, though, I might eat more than usual at the third meal, which I prefer to keep light.
  • LiveLoveRunFar
    LiveLoveRunFar Posts: 176 Member
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    When I was moving less I didn't eat back any, but if I have 500 to 600 exercise calories I will eat back 100-300 if I'm hungry. I don't log exercise on MFP, I let my fitbit calculate the burn and it synchs to MFP to show calories burned.
  • editorgrrl
    editorgrrl Posts: 7,060 Member
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    fudge8181 wrote: »
    I recently linked my fitbit charge HR to my MFP. I noticed it logs calories earned by steps as I go throughput the day.. Should I consume all/part of these calories back or will it hinder my progress?

    Your Fitbit burn is TDEE, the number of calories necessary to maintain your current weight.

    If (and only if) you enable negative calorie adjustments in your diary settings, eating back your adjustments means you're eating TDEE minus deficit.

    You can learn more in the Fitbit Users group: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users

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